Samuel Montagu surges back to black

SAMUEL MONTAGU made a pre- tax profit of pounds 72m last year following a pounds 26m loss a year earlier, the merchant banking arm of HSBC Holdings said yesterday.

The bank's return on equity also shot up to 38 per cent, but the improved performance excluded a pounds 125m bad debt provision against a court award to the liquidators of British & Commonwealth, who sued over the collapse of a deal to sell Exco, the money brokers. This charge has been taken elsewhere in the HSBC group, leaving the Samuel Montagu accounts clean.

The profit made up almost half the pounds 152.7m reported by HSBC's newly merged merchant banking operations, which comprise Samuel Montagu in London and Wardley in the Far East.

The securities business, James Capel, made a further pounds 67.9m, while the fund managers, HSBC Asset Management, made pounds 32.4m.

Capel has lost its position as number one firm in the City for analysis, after giving up attempts to compete across the board as too expensive. But now Capel is making healthy profits, HSBC has decided to invest further in developing the analysis side.

Bernard Asher, chairman of HSBC Investment Banking, said the company had realised many of the benefits of its acquisitions. The synergy of combining Midland Bank's investment banking and treasury businesses with those of HSBC was one of the key justifications for the takeover two years ago.

Profits from HSBC's investment banking side exclude treasury, capital markets and bond trading by Samuel Montagu, which appear in the commercial banking results.